


Oh, Ryan

by VictoriaAGrey



Category: Buzzfeed The Try Guys (Web Series), Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Christmas, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Fluff and Humor, Love Confessions, M/M, New Year's Eve, Shyan Secret Santa 2k18, Shyan Writing Events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 19:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17250173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VictoriaAGrey/pseuds/VictoriaAGrey
Summary: Ryan thinks the holiday season is going to be a predictable affair until Ned calls in a two year old debt Ryan owes him. Honoring that two year old debt sets into motion an avalanche of bad decisions and miscommunications that land Ryan at his parent's house on Christmas Day with a baby and a best friend pretending to be his boyfriend.Did he also mention Shane's living with him?





	1. The Debt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bjdunkelfuck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bjdunkelfuck/gifts).



> for [officiallyadumpster](http://officiallyadumpster.tumblr.com/). I hope I did your prompt well.
> 
> as always, my love and respect to Ryan and Shane

There were times when Ryan could admit that he deserved Shane’s gleefully condescending, “Oh, Ryan.”

It wasn’t often he would concede the point (Shane could fuck right off if he thinks he _at all_ regrets the Holy Water Pistol **™** he took to Goatman’s Bridge), but as he stared in horror at the blank screen of his phone, Shane choking out an “Oh, Ryan” through his silent laughter, he could admit that if he ever deserved it, it was now.

“Dude, fuck - I… what the fuck am I going to do?”

“Pay the piper,” he helpfully offered, hand over his stomach as he caught his breath. “You fucked up, now you gotta pay up.”

Ryan ran a hand through his hair, gripping the strands at the back of his head and giving them a firm tug, mind whirling with the logistics of the hole he’d dug himself then promptly fell into.

The problem is that Shane was right; he did fuck up and worse still, he’d feel guilty if he didn’t follow through on a two year old promise he made in the heat of the moment. See, Ryan has the unfortunate tendency to panic when any stage of the production process of Unsolved goes off schedule and it was in one of those instances when Ryan set into motion the clusterfuck his life was about to become.

It was five o’clock the night before he was due to post the latest episode of Unsolved, The Spirits of Whaley House, and he still had hours of editing to do. It was mostly finishing touches, but that didn’t take away from the fact that there were hours he needed and couldn’t feasibly find if he was going to upload on time. He had a cousin who was having a quinceañera, which he wouldn’t dream of bailing on, but the issue is that he was sick and already fading. He knew he wasn’t capable of pulling an all-nighter like he normally would and Shane had taken a vacation to nowhere Saskatchewan - “ _Saskatchewan_ … _fucking seriously, man?”_ \- which meant he had no one to naturally fall back on for help. Frustrated and with no idea what to do, he went to the cafeteria for some tea, which is where he bumped into none other than Ned Fulmer.

Ned commented that he looked terrible (which was a testament to how bad he must have looked because Ned was usually nothing but polite) and asked if he could do anything for him. Latching onto the offer like Dracula to a pretty woman’s neck, he explained his situation and asked if he would mind finishing his editing for him. Ned cringed when he started to detail what he needed done and Ryan knew he was losing him, his lifeline, and in his desperation, he said it:

_“Please, I’ll do anything.”_

A gleam came into Ned’s eyes, and much like he had, Ned clung to the offer like a Try Guy to any idea for a video that involved getting naked. He asked if he meant it and Ryan affirmed that he did, effectively sealing the deal. Ned edited the video, the finished product waiting on the cloud server the next morning ready for his final approval, and that was it. Ryan kept expecting Ned to call in his favor, whether it be to do some editing or appear in a particularly embarrassing Try Guys video, but it never happened and after a few months he forgot about the blank check offer entirely.

Until five minutes ago.

Shane had been kicking his ass at Mario Kart, so he was more than willing to pause the game and answer Ned’s call, surprised to see his name flash across his screen at all. They’d been more work friends than real life friends, which meant that when he and the rest of the gang left Buzzfeed, they largely fell out of touch. He took the call, more curious than anything else, and Ned wasted no time beating around the bush.

The Try Guys and Try Significant Others were in New York filming an upcoming five part series for their channel when a cold front crashed into the state and dumped, and was still dumping, an ungodly amount of snow. They were all safe and together, but their flight home had been cancelled faster than Father Thomas. As if being stranded across the country wasn’t bad enough, there was one large, glaring issue that needed to be taken care of immediately.

Wes. Not even one year old baby, potentially still pooping in a diaper, Wes.

Ariel’s best friend Natalie had agreed to watch him while they had been away filming, but she had a flight to catch in order to make it home for the holidays, one she wouldn’t be able to catch if she still had Wes and the Fulmers didn’t make it back in time. Ned had tried everything; bribing her to stay home, offering to buy a ticket for Wes to go with her to Washington before finding out that the flight was booked up. They had no other family or friends available in town to go get him, and there was no way for them to make it back in time even if they were already on a plane, which they were decidedly not. And that’s when it happened, he remembered the promise Ryan made in a fog of desperation and cold medicine.

He was so _so_ fucked.

“Alright, well, I guess I’ll get outta your hair. Don’t wanna interfere with your bonding time with Wes,” Shane said with a smirk, pulling his phone charger out of the socket next to the couch he’d been sleeping on for the past two days.

That was another thing Ryan forgot to account for. A pipe had burst in Shane’s apartment building and Ryan had offered him his couch until the problem was fixed. What was supposed to be about a week of pranks and bad puns suddenly became crucial, the bitter taste of panic flooding his mouth.

“Woah, now wait a minute. I need your help.”

“ _My_ help?” Shane asked, pointing at his own chest. “You wanna know who’s more useless with babies than you? Big hint. He’s 6’4” and thinks your belief in ghosts is wrong, wrong, wrong.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “I’m serious, man, I need your help.”

“You need Jesus. Have you not yet prayed for forgiveness in this, the year of our lord, 2018?”

Ryan picked up a blue bouncy ball from his entertainment center and threw it at him even as he laughed, Shane catching it just before it hit his chest. “Come on! I’ve been a good friend to you, let you sleep on my couch and steal my food without -.”

“Speaking of which, we’re out of popcorn butter.”

“- wait, are you serious?”

Shane shrugged. “We got a little overzealous last night.”

Rubbing his hands over his face, Ryan sighed the sigh of a thousand exhausted men.

“ _Anyway_ , as I was saying, I would very much appreciate it if you could do me a solid and watch the kid with me. You were going to be here anyway!”

“I have no experience with babies! None! I don’t even like those noisy little waste generators.”

“Shane, please, I’ll do anything.”

They both looked at each other in surprise until Shane’s expression melted into one of amusement and Ryan closed his eyes against it, waiting for the inevitable.

“Oh, Ryan.”

“Can’t we just skip this part?” he practically begged, while simultaneously telegraphing just how much he hated everything.

“The part where I tell you that those are the exact words that got you into this mess? No, we are definitely not skipping that part.”

“I’m desperate! I had no other choice!”

Shane’s smile mellowed until he looking up at him almost fondly, making Ryan’s stomach clinch.

“I admire your ability to make bad decisions in the face of knowing they’re bad decisions.”

“Does that means you’ll do it?”

Shane tapped a finger against his lips. “This offer, is it just as open as dear old Ned’s?”

“Yes.”

They glared at each other, the stand off lasting a solid thirty seconds until Shane cracked and said, while still glaring, “Fine.”

Ryan continued to glare back, even as relief flooded his system. “Fine.”

“But -”

“But!?”

“ _But_ -,” he emphasized, a smirk working its way back onto his face. “You owe me another favor, a smaller one, a little one, also to be called in on my discretion.”

Ryan threw his hands in the air. “Fine, whatever. You can have an additional little favor.”

“Excellent!” Shane clapped his hands and stood up from the couch. “Then we better get going. Isn’t this time sensitive or something?”

Grabbing his keys from the keyring next to the door, Ryan followed Shane out to his car, himself in the driver’s seat and Shane in the passenger. Ned had texted him Natalie’s address, which was theoretically only a ten minute drive away, but due to typical LA traffic was more like twenty. Ryan’s nerves continued to mount until they pulled up to the curb in front of her house, the same feeling he got when approaching a haunted location sweeping through him.

“This week on Buzzfeed Unsolved, we investigate how Ryan fucked up his own life and came into possession of a baby possibly possessed by the dark lord himself, as part of our ongoing investigation into the question, are ghosts real?”

Ryan laughed, both at Shane’s imitation of his narrator voice and his delivery, his face overly serious but with his eyes wide and terrified to imitate Ryan’s fear. He laughed until he felt some of the tension leech out of his body, then took a deep breath.

“Alright, let’s get this over with.”

They walked up to Natalie’s front door and knocked, only a few seconds passing before a tall redhead opened the door, baby Wes hitched on her hip and with a look of barely contained frenzy on her face.

“Please tell me you’re Ryan.”

“That’d be me, yeah.”

“Wow, Beyonce was right. God _is_ real,” she said, thrusting Wes into his arms with no preamble. They stared at each other in shock, Wes’s bright blue eyes wide and curious. Scared he’d start crying for some reason, Ryan tucked him against his chest and followed Natalie into her house, Wes’s hands reaching up to pat his cheeks curiously.

“Do you or your boyfriend know how to install a car seat?” she called from another room as Ryan stood awkwardly in the living room.

Ryan froze over his reply. “Uh -.”

“I can assure you that neither of us has any idea how to install a car seat,” Shane called back, tucking his phone back into his pocket. “I only learned how to install a toaster last year.”

Against his better judgment, Ryan giggled, Wes looking up at him happily at the sound. Ryan smiled at him and poked the tip of his nose, Wes gurgling a laugh at the touch. Maybe watching him for a day wouldn’t be as bad as he thought.

Natalie came running out of whatever room she had been in. “Okay, uh - I’m sorry, what’s your name?” she asked, pointing at Shane. “I’m Natalie, by the way. I’m sorry for the rush but I’m on a big time crunch here.”

“I’m Shane. And I get it. Travel is stressful even under normal circumstances.”

“Yeah, I feel like I’m a chicken running around with its head cut off, and accomplishing just about as much as it would.” She pointed at a baby seat near the door. “Alright, Shane, grab the car seat and follow me.”

Standing in the doorway, Ryan watched Shane crawl into the backseat of his car, followed by Natalie giving him step-by-step instructions on how to install the car seat. It didn’t take more than a minute before Natalie signaled for him to come out and meet them.

“Alright, both of you need to remember that before you go anywhere you need to check that the car seat is secure. Shane, try to move it around.” Shane did as instructed and when it didn’t move more than an inch or two on both sides, she nodded, satisfied. “Good. That means it’s secure. Now, Ryan, put Wes into the seat and buckle him in.”

Ryan gently placed Wes in the seat and found both sides of the seatbelt, buckling it and pulling on both sides of it to make sure it was latched properly. Natalie smiled approvingly when he did and instructed him and Shane to go back into the house and grab everything she had piled in the corner of her living room near the door. They found bags of baby necessities, toys, a stroller, booster seat, changing pad, carrier, and a bassinet, the name of which he only knew because of their ability to always pop up in haunted locations. They grabbed it all and somehow managed to pack it all into the trunk and what was left of the backseat of his car. After they did, Natalie gave them her number and told them that if they couldn’t reach Ned and Ariel for help, they could call her. She then ran back into her house, leaving Ryan and Shane alone with baby Wes, who was quietly cooing in the backseat, a colorful triceratops in his hands.

“Okay, that was, uh, intense.”

“Yeah.” Shane continued looking at the paper in his hands, then held it up to Ryan. “We need to go to the grocery store.”

“What? Why?”

Ryan took the paper from Shane, which turned out to be the meal plan Natalie had used during her week with Wes. He had pretty much nothing that was on the list.

“This kid eats healthier than I do.”

Shane laughed. “Yeah, I doubt he’s downing Chipotle and CGC’s from Taco Bell on the regular.”

Pointing at the list, he turned it back to Shane. “Look at this. His dinner tonight is rice with chicken and peas. Banana baby food for dessert. My mom would weep if I ate this good.”

“Does that mean I shouldn’t tell her about the whole pizza we ate last night and the bag of popcorn we had after?”

“I would say I would kill you but she’d kill me before I could get my hands around your skinny little neck.”

Shane smirked. “Could you even reach it?”

Ryan lunged across the center console, both laughing as they smacked each other in an attempt to keep the other from reaching their goal.

“You’re setting a -.” Shane smacked his arm when it came close to his face. “- a bad example for Wes. He’ll be scarred for life. Scarred, I tell you!”

“He can’t even see us!” he retorted, smacking away Shane’s hand when it grazed his neck. “His seat faces the back!”

Just as Ryan was about to make a final push to get Shane’s neck, something wet smacked the side of his face, the sound of Wes’s delighted laughter following it. Ryan reeled back and saw that somehow Wes had lost his hold on the triceratops and a horn which he had been chewing on had hit him. Shane picked it up and handed it back to Wes.

“I changed my mind. I like this one kid.”

“We’ve had him for the grand total of ten minutes,” Ryan said, buckling up and then starting the car. “He may just be buttering us up before he reveals his demon ways.”

“Oh, I sure hope so. We can finally perform that exorcism we’ve always talked about. It can be an Unsolved special: The Exciting Exorcism of Wes Fulmer.”

They continued to come up with increasingly ridiculous scenarios for Wes to reveal himself as a demon until they pulled up to the Trader Joe’s closest to his apartment. Ryan went to pull out the stroller, but Shane insisted on using the carrier, saying that he found the idea of them both pushing something around the store “disquieting.” Ryan relented quickly, knowing he would never understand how Shane’s giant noggin worked. They somehow managed to determine how to fasten the carrier around Shane, then place Wes safely into it.

Figuring that he could get his own shopping done for the next few days at the same time, Ryan wound his way through the aisles, picking up groceries he knew he needed and a few things he knew would make Shane happy. Ryan kept bracing himself for something to go wrong, for Wes to become bored and start crying, turning him into the frazzled parent who had to apologize for his kid’s behavior to annoyed passersby, but it never happened. Wes was perfectly content in his carrier watching the world pass him by, Shane entertaining him by picking up whatever colorful thing caught his attention and letting him look at it while Ryan picked up whatever he needed.

After picking up what they needed from the baby food aisle, Ryan worked his way up to the front of the store and got in line. He turned around to ask Shane if he missed anything, but got distracted by Wes joyfully waving around what appeared to be a bib.

“We don’t need that,” Ryan said pointing at it. “There’s a couple in one of the bags. Go put it back.”

“Why?” Shane asked with a frown. “It’s only like $3, who cares?”

“It’s pink.”

Shane gave him a withering look. “It’s a bib, Ryan.”

“It says ‘Daddy’s Girl,’” Ryan pointed out dryly.

“Do we care if the bib is unnecessarily gendered, Wes?” Shane asked, then wiggled side-to-side with each word as he said, “No, we don’t. No, we don’t.”

Wes laughed with the movement, wildly waving the bib out towards Ryan. It didn’t take much more than that to make Ryan crack.

“Fine, fine. He can have the bib.”

“One small step for man, one giant leap for not gendering fucking bibs.”

“Shane!” Ryan made a move as if to smack his arm in reprimand, but stopped before he could lift his arm, Shane catching the move and laughing at it.

“Ooh, can’t smack me. Got a baby we need to be setting a good example for.”

“Says the guy who just fucking cursed.”

Ryan only caught his mistake after he said it, but not before Shane laughed at him. “Wow, you are so bad at this!”

Waving a dismissive hand, Ryan turned to the conveyor belt and started placing their items on it. The lady who was just ahead of them in line turned to him and smiled.

“Sorry for the intrusion, but I just wanted to say that your baby is such a delight,” she said, looking between him and Shane. When she waved at Wes, he waved his bib at her as if in greeting. “It’s been so long since I’ve heard such a happy baby.”

Ryan thought about correcting her obvious assumption, but Shane responded first.

“Thanks. We’re just happy he’s not satan.”

Inwardly cringing thinking he’d have to apologize if she took Shane’s comment the wrong way, Ryan was relieved when she just laughed.

“I understand the feeling. My first two were little devils but my third was an angel.” She quickly paid, then waved goodbye to them. “It was nice meeting you two and your baby. Take care.”

They quickly got checked out after that and were walking back to the car when Ryan had a sudden realization, freezing in his steps.

“Shane, did we pay for the bib?”

They looked at each other for a second, then down at Wes who was attempting to stuff the bib into the carrier with him. Shane, predictably, was the one to break the silence.

“Holy shit. A criminal mastermind at the age of one,” he laughed, gently running an adoring hand over the top of his head. “What a cool dude.”

“Do we - I don’t know, go back and pay for it?” Ryan asked, attempting to stifle his laughter but not doing a particularly good job of it.

“And rectify the hard work of Wes’s first criminal endeavor? I think not.”

Not fighting Shane’s twisted logic for once, Ryan shrugged and set about making room in the trunk for their groceries as Shane got Wes out of the carrier and into his car seat. When they got back to his apartment, they somehow managed to get all the groceries and Wes inside in one trip, Shane putting the groceries away as Wes watched from his booster seat in the corner while Ryan grabbed the rest of his stuff.

That night, for the first time in a long time, Ryan ate dinner at the little table he had in his kitchen. Shane sat across from him, laughing at Ryan as he made airplane noises at Wes to entice him into eating his peas. It wasn’t the ideal situation, far from it, but for the moment, Ryan thought everything was going to work out alright...


	2. Christmas

...but unfortunately, Ryan also has the unfortunate tendency to count his chickens before they hatch.

“No, Mom, I didn’t have a baby,” he repeated for the third time, attempting to get her to hear him over their faulty Skype connection and her screaming.

“Mom. Mom. MOM!” When she stopped yelling whatever it was she was yelling and the connection seemed to stabilize, he spoke again. “I did NOT have a baby. NO. I’m _watching_ my _friend’s_ baby.”

“Why are you watching your friend’s baby on Christmas Eve?” she asked, still sounding vaguely skeptical.

“Because he’s stuck in New York until late tomorrow night, which is why I’m calling. Would you mind if I bring the baby to dinner tomorrow?”

Her face lit up, the sun shining down on her practically making her glow. “Oh, I’d love that! It’s been so long since I’ve had a baby to spoil since someone isn’t giving me grandkids yet.” Ryan closed his eyes, physically pained by his mom’s little reminder. “Let me see Wes! What’s he doing? Where is he?”

Ryan briefly glanced up to see Shane looking highly amused at his expense, Wes propped up on his hip holding his colorful triceratops that was now wearing the heisted bib.

“He’s, uh, napping.”

“That’s disappointing,” she said, the connection cracking again over her words as she adjusted her beach chair so it was once again protected from the sun beneath the giant umbrella she had faithfully taken to the beach with her for the last five years.

What Ryan didn’t count on, what Ryan could never account for, was Shane being a spiteful brat. It usually manifested with him eating a burrito in front of him when he was lying to himself that he was going to start eating healthier or him “accidentally” wrecking Ryan’s desk area in dramatic fashion after he called him a “wacky wavy air dancer who lost his job at the local car dealership,” but apparently he decided to up his game for the holidays. Before Ryan realized what he was doing, Shane walked behind him, in full view of the camera, baby Wes happily cooing at Ryan’s computer screen.

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Bergara,” Shane greeted, having the gall to act as if he were surprised to see her. “So nice to see you again.”

She looked like she was going to reply when Wes threw his triceratops, immediately getting upset at its abrupt departure, as if he hadn’t been the one to make it happen. Shane went to go pick it up, taking him out of view of the camera, and after he picked it up, he looked back at Ryan with a smirk that read as nothing but triumphant. Ryan felt his cheeks color.

“Uh, yeah, so - uh, yeah, Shane’s staying over for a few days. A pipe in his building burst...” he trailed off, his mom looking a bit distant until her look changed into something which he couldn’t for the life of him read.

“Ryan Steven Bergara, why didn’t you tell me you’re dating that boy?”

Ryan saw Shane’s eyes go as big as saucers in his periphery, but he ignored it in favor of his own panic. He wanted to protest, to ask where the hell she got that idea, but he suddenly saw everything from her perspective and _understood_.

He hadn’t seen anyone seriously in over a year and she had started to hint that she could introduce him to some of her friends’ daughters if he wanted, and truth be told, he didn’t want to. Ryan didn’t want to start dating again; he was able to finally focus on himself, on his friends, on Unsolved and all that entailed. So when her offers started to become more persistent, he had gotten vague.

_“Yeah, I’m kinda seeing someone.”_

_“No, it’s not serious, but it could be someday.”_

_“Uh, I kinda work with them so it’s complicated.”_

And now here he is, 10 o’clock in the morning with messed up hair and his best friend, who he also works with, walking around his apartment in pajamas caring for a baby he’s supposed to be watching. She took all the vagaries he fed her and put it all together; she was wrong, but barely. It was like she had solved a calculus problem, showed all her work, but got the solution wrong by a single point. She wasn’t wrong by much, but that one point difference was worlds apart from the real answer.

“Oh, no - Mom, no, I’m -.”

“Honey, can you hear me?” she asked through the bad connection, hitting the side of her phone, as if that would help. “Honey? Ryan, if you can  - bring him, please - baby - see you - love.”

Then nothing. The connection broke and his computer screen went black, his own shell shocked expression staring back at him.

“Oh, Ryan.”

Ryan leaned back on the couch and covered his face. “Do we have to do this?”

“Always,” Shane laughed, then seemed to sober a bit. He laid Wes down on a pile of blankets that they were using as a makeshift play area for him and his toys. “So, how did she jump to the conclusion that we’re dating?”

“How are you so calm about this!?” Ryan bellowed, the chaos in his chest getting a target. “Why aren’t you freaking out that my mom thinks we’re - you know...”

Shane raised his eyebrows. “That we’re what?”

“You know -,” Ryan trailed off, then made a crude gesture where he moved a finger in and out of the closed fist of his other hand.

“Oh, that we’re -?” he asked, then made the same gesture with his own hands, but more aggressively, for the sole purpose of torturing Ryan.

“Ahh, stop!” Ryan yelled waving his hands in front of his own face. “Ugh, I hate myself!”

Shane laughed, enjoying his misery. “You should! Now, get it together, Bergara! You got some ‘splainin’ to do.”

Ryan ran his hands over his face, then looked back at Shane, who sat down on the coffee table in front of him. He was still obviously amused, but he did look concerned, which was all Ryan needed.

“I - I’ve been vague for the past few months about whether or not I’ve been seeing someone. I said that I was but it was complicated because I work with them. I think I even played the pronoun game… and then...”

“And then she saw me walk behind you.” He nodded in understanding. “Suddenly our little sleepover isn’t as innocent as it actually was.”

“Yeah.”

Shane waited a beat, then what amusement was left on his face melted away. “Is she… is she wrong in thinking you could be dating a guy?”

It was a loaded question, one Ryan didn’t have a nice, prepackaged answer for because it wasn’t something he talked about. Instinctively, he wanted to say yeah, his mom was wrong in thinking that, but he’d been trying to do better, especially with Shane. There was also the fact that it would be a lie.

Ryan crossed his arms over his chest in what he knew looked like a protective gesture, but he didn’t care. “Not really.”

“Okay,” Shane said with a decisive nod, the assurance he felt for whatever decision he made alluding Ryan. “I’ll go with you.”

“Go with me where?”

“Your parents for Christmas.”

Ryan looked back at Shane in surprise, Shane's sincerity taking him off guard. “You… you can’t go with me. They’ll assume we’re dating.”

“That’s the point. You said you were being evasive about dating and I’m assuming it’s because they were concerned, right?”

“I mean, yeah, but -.”

“And now they have proof. If I show up with you, the assumption will fly, and you’ll be off the hook.”

Ryan considered his offer, running all the ways it could go wrong considering that he actually did have feelings for Shane. They were buried deep, kept away from the light of day, but they were there, rattling around in the box where he kept them. He’d be playing a dangerous game, walking a very careful line that was so blurry he could barely tell when he crossed it anymore. Giving himself one last out in an attempt at maintaining his own sanity, he grasped at the only straw he had left.

“I thought you were going to go to one of your friend’s Christmas get together things.”

“I’ll cancel,” he answered easily, as if it really hadn’t mattered to him in the first place when Ryan knew it had. If he couldn’t make it home for the holidays, he still liked to be with people he cared for and who cared for him. It always served as a subtle reminder to Ryan that he wasn’t as unfeeling as he let on.

“And you don’t… you don’t care that it’s, you know, me?”

Shane looked taken aback, a flash of hurt before it was gone. “I don’t even know where to start with responding to that.”

Ryan scratched at the back of his neck, using it as an excuse to look away. “I just mean that… I don’t know, that we have a lot in common, but on a fundamental level we’re a lot different and I don’t know if you’d want people thinking - you know, that you’re dating me. That you’d be embarrassed.”

“Well, it’s not like we’re putting up a billboard in Times Square, Ryan, it’s just your family.” They both snickered at the thought, bringing some levity to the moment before Shane took it away, looking at him as if so much more hinged on the moment than just a fake date. “I don’t know where you got this notion that I’m embarrassed of you, or would be embarrassed to date you, but I wouldn’t be. You’re kind, you’re intelligent, you’re funny. We have a lot more in common than I think you give us credit for. And you’re right, on a foundational level, we do have our differences, but I wouldn’t want you to be like me. I probably wouldn’t even like you. I really don’t know what else to say except that if you take nothing else away from this frankly odd week, just know that I’ve never been embarrassed of you. Embarrassed _for_ you, maybe, but embarrassed _of_ you, never.”

They both laughed at the final statement, but Ryan felt like they had come to some sort of mutual understanding. What that mutual understanding was about, he couldn’t say, but he felt like a monumental shift had taken place and they were both okay with it. He looked over at Wes and smiled, even though the little shit had peed on him when he changed his diaper that morning, and silently thanked him.

“Last chance, man. You sure you’re good with this?”

Shane nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

After one more second of consideration, Ryan took his phone out to text his mom that Shane would be coming with him to Christmas dinner. “Alright, let’s do this.”

 

~~~

Wes loves the color pink.

At least, that’s what Shane said when he presented Wes to Ryan wearing a little pink button-up shirt with grey pants. Ryan almost died on sight and it wasn’t because he hated it.

But he had a role to play.

“You went out and bought him a pink button-up?”

“We couldn’t very well have Wes going to your parents house not looking his best, now could we?” he asked rhetorically, fixing Wes’s collar. “I almost got him a little top hat and monocle so we could make him look like the Monopoly guy, but I thought that’d be a bit excessive.”

The fact that Ryan couldn’t tell if he was joking or not was just so indicative of his relationship with Shane that he just let it go.

“And did you purposely get him a shirt with the exact shade of pink I know you have on a button-up?”

“No, and as you can see, Ryan -,” he said, fanning the arm out that wasn’t holding Wes. “- I’m not wearing my pink shirt.”

That was an understatement. Shane was wearing the one really good suit he had; a dark red, windowpane check suit with plain white button-up and black dress shoes, all of which he’d had to go back to his apartment to retrieve. Capped off with the translucent framed glasses that were secretly Ryan’s favorite, Ryan kinda wanted to die.

He wanted to die a lot that morning, all for completely different reasons.

“Right, well, you - you look good.”

Again, what an understatement.

Shane smiled at the compliment. “So do you.”

Ryan was wearing his grey suit with a black button-up and black dress shoes. It wasn’t nearly as loud or fashion forward of an outfit as Shane’s, but he liked it.

“Thanks,” he said, then closed the distance between him and Shane and took Wes, wanting to buckle him into his car seat before they left. “Would you mind getting the bag with his necessities for me? I think I left it in my bedroom.”

“It’s already out in the car.”

“And his triceratops?”

Shane looked around the room before locating it on the couch. “Got it.”

Once Wes had his triceratops in hand, they left his apartment and started making the trek to his parent’s house. On a good day, the drive took about an hour, but with Christmas Day traffic and two accidents on the freeway, the drive took over an hour and a half. The whole way, Ryan’s nerves mounted, reminding him that he was effectively lying to his family by convincing them that he was in a relationship with Shane, with him knowing he’d have to exploit his very real feelings for Shane to sell it. By the time his parent’s house came into view his stomach was in knots, tumbling over itself and spreading a nauseous feeling through his chest.

Shane’s hand landed on his where it was still resting from turning off the car. “Are you sure you wanna do this? It’s not too late to turn back.”

Ryan thought about it, had been thinking about it, but something kept him from saying yes and doing exactly that. It was as if a part of him wanted to have this day, just this one day where he got exactly what he wanted without the potential emotional fallout.

It was perfect, so he said _fuck it_.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he said, and as if to prove his point, he got out of the car.

After reminding Ryan that his family would be wanting to greet him, Shane insisted on taking the car seat and necessities bag, which left Ryan to knock on the door. Only a few seconds passed before the familiar face of his mom swung open the door.

“Hey, Mom.”

She captured him in a big hug, squeezing him as if she hadn’t seen him in years. After she pulled away, she turned to Shane.

“It’s so good to see you again, Shane,” she said, then went to hug him, but was faced with the problem of all that he was carrying.

“Oops, hold on.”

He sat the car seat down on the step for a second to swing the necessities bag up onto his shoulder, then leaned down to hug her. The size difference was staggering and Ryan giggled, unable to hide his amusement. Shane smirked at him over her shoulder, sharing in the joke because he knew exactly what Ryan found so funny.

Once the three of them were through the door, Wes in tow with his mom because she knew everyone would be wanting to be greeting them, they were surrounded. His dad and brother managed to get through first, both giving him hugs. His dad seemed to want a moment with Shane, Shane leaning down and nodding as his dad said something into his ear, but then an aunt swooped in, then a cousin and an uncle, the train of loving relatives continuing as they kept coming over and making a point of hugging both him and Shane. Ryan never doubted for a second that his family wouldn’t support him, but to see and feel the support was different, nearly making him tear up a few times.

“This is your boyfriend, right, Ryan? This is Shane?” his Aunt Yui, who was notorious for not having a filter, asked as she parted from Ryan and looked up at Shane. Ryan braced himself.

“Yeah, that’s Shane.”

Taking into account that she was a solid 4’9”, she didn’t make Shane bend down to hug her and instead hugged him around his middle. She then looked up at him and back at Ryan. Ryan braced himself some more.

“Oh, he’s so tall, Ryan,” she said almost fondly. “How do you kiss him?”

Through the short circuiting of his brain, Ryan heard his surrounding family laugh. As he looked at her with god knows what expression, he again prayed for death. It was like the universe was _trying_ to see how many times it could make him ask for death in a single day. Luckily, Shane was quicker on the uptake than he was.

“I carry a step stool in my back pocket.”

Moving on instinct, Ryan smacked his arm at the same time his aunt smacked his stomach. They looked at each other in surprise, then laughed.

“Come with me to the kitchen. Your boyfriend is tall, he must be hungry,” she said then walked away, expecting them to follow, as if her logic made perfect sense and wasn’t to be questioned.

Knowing a directive when he heard one, he took Wes back from his mom, who was positively fawning over the baby excitedly taking in the new environment, so he could take him around to all the different dishes in the room to smell them and taste what ones he could. As the three of them walked under the archway leading into the kitchen, his aunt looked at him in victory and he heard his mom say “oh no” behind him. When he looked at her to see what happened, she looked up at something above their heads, hand over her mouth to cover her amusement.

Mistletoe. A fucking sprig of mistletoe.

Once again, where was death when he wanted it?

Aside from his aunt and mom, there was about a handful of other relatives standing around, all looking amused that someone had yet again fallen for the mistletoe. Looking back on previous years, he knew he wouldn’t be faulted for not following through, but when he looked up at Shane to get him in on his refusal, all he did was give him a tiny nod of his head, one meant just for him, telling him it was okay, that the ball was in his court to decide what they did. The nervous energy that had been in his chest crested and he froze for a second, knowing what he _wanted_ to do and what he _should_ so, but then again, he made the conscious decision to take what he could and enjoy it.

_Fuck it_.

Ryan nodded back and Shane smiled softly at him. The tips of his fingers came up to touch his neck and jaw, tipping his head back. There was a moment, a split second where Ryan could pull away from Shane and end the charade - Shane giving him one last out - but he didn’t pull away, so Shane closed the distance and kissed him, gentle and unpresuming. It felt unbearably intimate.

“Oh, he actually isn’t too short to kiss him.”

Ryan felt Shane’s kiss turn into a smile and his chest quake with laughter where his hand had somehow come to rest and Ryan turned away from him, breaking the kiss.

“Mom!” he bellowed, laughter cutting through his tone. She continued to laugh as his aunt clapped from behind him.

“Oh, no,” his cousin Valentina giggled, looking down at her camera. “Oh, man, that’s gold.”

“What is?”

She walked over to him and Shane and turned the camera around so they could see the screen. He expected to see a pic of them kissing with maybe someone making a funny face in the background, but what she got was what he knew would become a family classic; one of those disastrous pictures where so many things went wrong that it was perfect.

What Valentina managed to capture was the second after his mom had made the short joke. Shane was leaning down and laughing, fingers still on Ryan’s face when he was mid-yell. And then there was Wes, sweet Wes, waving his bibbed triceratops and smiling, as if he knew it was time to pose for the camera. Ryan loved it, loved everything about the photo because it perfectly captured everything his life was at the moment. Looking up at Shane, he seemed to be on the same wavelength.

“Hey, these pics automatically load on my phone. Want me to send it to you?”

Shane took the phone from her hand and typed in his number. “Absolutely.”

Valentina laughed as she sent it to him as well as Ryan. After she walked away to capture some more pictures of people not at their best, Shane leaned in and whispered in his ear.

“I’m calling in my little favor.”

“Oh, yeah? What do you want?”

Shane tilted his phone towards him, the picture on the screen. “I want send this to my parents.”

Ryan nodded his head knowingly, snickering at Shane’s expense. “Your parents are on you about dating, too?”

“No, they actually think we’re dating. I keep trying to correct them, but they don’t listen. Now I’m just gonna lean into it.”

Not knowing how else to respond, Ryan just nodded his consent with a knowing smirk and watched Shane fall into the same hole he dug himself.

After he sent the picture, they walked into the kitchen, Aunt Yui giving them a grand tour of all the dishes that they would be picking from. They weren’t allowed to sample anything, Shane got his hand smacked when he made an attempt on the onigiri, but Aunt Yui did give Shane a roll, apparently believing that his height did mean he was always hungry. Picking off a small corner, Shane fed it to Wes, who quickly ate the little morsel.

Wes always looked happy, but he seemed to hit a new plane of existence in the kitchen. Ryan was holding him face forward against his chest, arms across his stomach and under his legs, so he could see everything he was smelling. When they got to the yams, something they knew Wes liked, Ryan had Shane grab a little spoon and sneak a taste for Wes. Before he fed it to him though, Shane pulled out his phone and started a video, feeding Wes with his other hand. Wes flailed about, arms and legs waving as he ate the yams and Ryan and Shane both laughed at the spectacle, Shane ending his video with, “This boy really loves yams!” before he sent it to the Fulmers, who would be boarding their plane home soon assuming no other weather disasters struck.

When it was time to eat, Shane and Ryan were naturally seated next to each other, Ryan’s brother sitting next to him and Wes sitting at the corner of the table between Shane and his mom, seated in the highchair he had when he was little. The dinner went smoothly, Ryan spending the bulk of it joking around with his brother when he wasn’t eating in a way that suggested he had ever heard the word moderation. By the time the meal was winding down and dessert was making the rounds, Shane’s arm came to casually lay along his back, his forearm resting on the arm of the chair. Instead of leaning away from it or rebuffing the touch, he leaned into it, Shane smiling down at him for accepting the gesture.

“So, how long have you two been dating?” his Uncle Miguel asked, waving his fork between them, then dipping it back into his piece of tres leches cake.

Really, Ryan should have known there’d be a few questions his family would want answers to.

“Five months,” Shane answered easily, setting down his glass of wine. “Ryan paid for both dinner and a movie and when I asked if it was a date, he said, ‘it could be.’ Then, as the kids say, the rest is history.”

Ryan felt his cheeks color, not because of the story, but because the story was _true_. The big exception though was that when Shane had asked if it was a date, Ryan had felt his insides clinch at seeing that Shane was serious, and he’d responded with his “it could be” around a fist full of popcorn that he unceremoniously shoved into his mouth to hide that he kinda meant it. Shane had shrugged it off and Ryan had kinda wanted to die on the spot.

He was starting to realize he prayed for death _a lot_.

“Wait, so Ryan never officially asked you on a date?” his mom asked, giving Ryan a reproachful look.

“No, he did, just not for the first one,” Shane laughed. He moved his hand so it rested on Ryan’s shoulder blade, giving his shoulder a gentle squeeze, as if in apology for the story. Ryan smiled at him to let him know it was okay. He was cool with getting roasted.

Valentina lowered her camera and giggled. “That sounds about right. Ryan’s always known to test the waters before jumping in.”

Ryan felt himself tighten, knowing Shane was smart enough to put the pieces together and figure out that that night five months ago had, in fact, been Ryan testing the waters. If it bothered him though, he didn’t show it.

“I don’t know. I tend to think of him as the bull in a china shop type instead of a tepidly testing the waters type. The first time I met him, he asked if I believed in ghosts and when I said no he called me an idiot and walked away.”

“What the hell, dude?” his brother asked through a laugh, setting down his buñuelo. “You have no game.”

“What!? No, this guy had the balls to open a conversation with, ‘Speed Racer is the best movie of the last decade. Discuss’ and suddenly I’m the one with no game!? No. If I have no game, he has negative game.”

“Excuse me?” Shane interrupted, looking genuinely offended. “Speed Racer _is_ the greatest movie of the last decade and you have yet to present a single argument otherwise.”

“That’s because I don’t need to! The movie speaks for itself. Aside from the cinematography, it’s a fucking disaster.”

Shane waved his hand through the air, as if to banish Ryan’s hurtful words. “No, no, no. The story admittedly had… flaws, but it is a visual masterpiece with a heartwarming story to boot.”

“Heartwarming!? How high to do you have to -.”

“Boys!” Aunt Yui injected over Ryan’s impassioned response, setting down her dorayaki. “Save all that energy for later.”

Ryan felt a blush work its way up his neck as approximately half the table yelled, “Aunt Yui!” It would seem that him and Shane’s argument had captured the attention of the majority of the table and he failed to account for that, as well as Aunt Yui’s usual candor. After the table lapsed into laughter for a couple seconds, the conversation moved on, his Uncle Haruki regaling Shane with the story of the time when Ryan went to Japan when he was ten and ate so much dango in one day that he threw up at the foot of a cherry blossom tree in front of a bunch of tourists. It was only once the majority of the table was done eating and people were walking off to either clean up or chat away from the table that his dad came over, asking Shane for a word outside. He agreed and after giving Ryan a quick kiss to the temple, he followed his dad out onto the porch.

Squinting out the window in an attempt to glean anything from the conversation they were having, he failed to notice his mom smiling at his rubbernecking.

“He’ll be fine, honey,” she said, feeding Wes a green bean. “Your dad’s not gonna eat him or something. He stuffed himself on dinner.”

“I’m not worried,” he lied. Shane looked comfortable enough, turned towards his dad from their seats on the porch, but he was good at hiding what he felt. “I just wanna know what he’s saying.”

“Hmm.” She handed Wes a bit of a strawberry, then looked back at Ryan. “He’s a good man. I can see why you love him.”

The moment sat suspended between them, Ryan feeling everything he tried not to about Shane, and guilt at the deception, as his mom looked at him adoringly. He looked away from her in favor of giving Wes his hand when he reached for him.

“Yeah, I think he’s pretty great.”

Ryan set about cleaning the highchair to distract himself as his mom entertained Wes in the living room. When Shane came back in with his dad a few minutes later, he looked fine, but was distant in a way Ryan couldn’t break through. He wanted to talk to him, see if something was wrong, but he went into the kitchen to help with clean up.

Because of the arrival of the Fulmers, they were only able to mingle and chat for another hour before they had to leave. As Shane was putting Wes in his car seat, his dad came up to him and pulled him into a tight hug.

“I hope he brings you nothing but happiness,” he said when they parted, his expression achingly genuine, and again, Ryan felt awash in guilt.

After they said their goodbyes to everyone, they sat in the car for a second, enjoying the silence. Ryan leaned his head back on the headrest and closed his eyes, trying to compartmentalize the chaos of his emotions. He looked over at Shane and saw that he had his arm propped up on the door, mouth resting against his loosely closed fist, staring out the window with a vacant expression.

“How did it go with my dad?” he ventured, suddenly unsure how to start a conversation with him.

“Fine.”

Judging from his blank tone, Ryan knew he should stop, that Shane had effectively shut himself down, but he couldn’t quash his curiosity. “What did he say to you?”

Enough time passed for it to seem like Shane wasn’t going to respond at all, but he did.

“He said if I broke your heart, he’d cut my head off in his dentist’s chair. I think he added that last part to lighten the mood, but I have the sneaking sensation he meant it.”

Ryan didn’t know how to respond, he just continued to look at Shane as Shane continued to look at nothing. The silence was broken when Wes laughed and the pink bib came flying at Ryan’s face. He handed it back to Wes, then started the car.

He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing at all.


	3. New Years

“Merry Christmas!”

Ryan looked up at Shane who was holding a large, rectangular something that was wrapped in Speed Racer wrapping paper. Where he found it, god knows, but it was very Shane of him to go through the trouble of finding it. He bit his lip, suppressing a smile that he was unwilling to surrender in his war against Shane’s love of Speed Racer.

How he fell in love with such an idiot was beyond him.

“It’s New Years.”

“I know, but Christmas was… chaotic and I still have your present.”

That was the revisionist history version of that day. After they left his parent’s house, they didn’t talk until they got back to his apartment and were forced to in order to make sure that they gathered all of Wes’s things. When Ned and Ariel arrived to take Wes back home, they were pleasant enough, going through the motions of small talk before they had to say goodbye to Wes. Ryan felt a sadness he didn’t expect to when he gave him a hug and kiss goodbye on his forehead, Shane looking like he felt similar as he did the same. Once the Fulmers left, leaving just the two of them in unmovable silence, Ryan excused himself and went to bed early, watching Parks and Rec for hours without having a single idea what episodes he was watching.

And then the next day came, and nothing. They acted as if everything was normal and the previous day, previous _three_ days, hadn’t happened at all.

He still kinda missed Wes.

“Now that you mention it, hold on.” Ryan went to his room and retrieved Shane’s present from his dresser, walking back out to the living room and handing it to him. “Merry super late Christmas.”

Shane smiled as he took it, then tilted his head at the coffee table where he laid down his gift. “You go first.”

Ryan sat back down on the couch and started opening his gift, Shane sitting next to him.

“Oh, wow,” Ryan said, tearing away the last of the wrapping paper to reveal a framed poster from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. He already had it, but he didn’t want to be a jerk and mention that. “Thanks, man.”

There was a beat of silence before Shane burst into silent laughter, Ryan looking at him in confusion until he calmed himself down.

“You really were just going to be nice about me getting you something I already know you have, weren’t you?”

Ryan felt color rise in his cheeks and he laughed. “Well, I thought you forgot or something! I didn’t wanna be mean!”

“Yeah, I know. Ryan Bergara, forever the nice guy,” he said fondly, then pointed at the poster. “That really is your present, but it’s different from the one you have. Look closely.”

Ryan looked at him skeptically, but did as he asked. He leaned in and at first couldn’t see how this poster was different from the one he had, but then he noticed that the corners weren’t sharp anymore. There was a small tear towards one of the edges and the white border was not perfectly white anymore. He gasped.

“Is it real?” he asked in a whisper, not wanting to get his hopes up if he was wrong.

“Yeah. It’s a theater poster from the original run. There’s a certificate of authenticity on the back if you’re interested.”

“Shane, this is incredible!” he said, leaning over and pulling Shane into a tight hug. “I can’t believe you found one.”

Shane shrugged as if it wasn’t a big deal. “I just thought you’d like it.”

Ryan pulled back, knowing his smile was probably reaching embarrassing levels, but he didn’t care. “Seriously, man, this is one of the best presents I’ve ever gotten. Thank you.”

There was color rising in Shane’s cheeks and he looked away, smiling. “You’re welcome.”

“Now open yours! I think you’re gonna like it.”

Ryan was proud of the present he got for Shane. It cost him an arm and a leg, but he wanted to get Shane something special, as if getting him something incredible would somehow tell him that he cared about him better than his words ever could. He excitedly watched as Shane tore the wrapping paper away to reveal a butterfly in a glass case.

“What do you think? Do you like it?” Ryan asked in rapid fire because Shane just kept looking at it without saying anything.

He seemed to hesitate before saying, a bit in awe, “I don’t even know what kind of butterfly this is.”

“It’s a morpho cypris,” he replied dutifully, grateful that he’d had the forethought to memorize the name. “It’s a rare butterfly from Colombia.”

“I thought they were a different color.”

“They usually are,” he replied, his excitement building back up. “But this one’s rare because it’s a gold female. I have no idea what any of that means but the butterfly lady was pretty hyped about it.”

Shane turned to look at him, his expression impossibly fond, and said nothing. Ryan didn’t know what to do, so he fell back on an oldie, but a goodie. “I just wanted to add to your dead body collection.”

“It’s not a dead body.”

The silence drifted back over them and Ryan lived in it, recognizing it for once and not wanting to pull away and reduce it to something less significant. He wanted to see it for what it was. Bracing himself, he tested the waters.

“You look like you wanna kiss me.”

He added enough of a lilt to his voice that Shane could read it as humorous if he wanted to and pull away, but he he didn’t.

“I do,” he answered quietly, then turned away and stood up. “But I’m not going to… not yet, anyway.”

Ryan’s jaw dropped. “But - what the hell?”

“I’m going to kiss you, just not yet.”

“Then when? Why not now?” he asked, amused but baffled by his antics.

Shane laughed. “Look at the time.”

Ryan looked at the time at the bottom of the TV screen where there was a countdown to midnight. To the New Year.

“You’re gonna kiss me at midnight.” Ryan smiled to himself, then looked back up at Shane. “You’re a romantic sap.”

“I thought I’d bring in the New Year right,” he said as he turned away and looked for something in the fridge. “I thought about kissing you after we got back from your parent's on Christmas, but we had too much on our minds. I decided to wait it out.”

“You’ve known you were going to kiss me since Christmas?”

He found the thought charming, and a bit masochistic.

“Yeah, of course.” There was the sound of a pop of a bottle in the kitchen, then a pouring sound. “Why else would I still be here? Because I love sleeping on your couch oh so much?”

“Gee, I don’t know, maybe because a fucking pipe burst in your apartment building and you can’t go back yet?”

Shane stood in the doorway between the kitchen and living room holding two flutes of champagne and one look at his face was all it took to know what he was going to say next. Ryan sighed.

“Oh, Ryan.”

“Come on, Shane!” he bellowed, unwilling to go down without a fight. “It’s not like I had anyway of knowing that!”

“I went back to get my suit!” he laughed. “I thought that was a dead give away! And it’s not like you’ve said anything. You never asked when I was leaving.”

“Because I didn’t want you to leave.”

They stared at each other, both surprised by the honesty, until Shane’s expression mellowed and he smirked.

“You said you know how to pick the lock to the roof?”

Ryan blinked at the abrupt change in topic. “Yeah?”

“Then get what you need and let’s go.”

He immediately knew what Shane’s plan was and smiled, jumping to his feet and running to the bathroom, grabbing a metal nail file he had and then hurrying back into the living room. They had only a couple of minutes, so they took the stairs to the rooftop entrance as fast as they could without Shane spilling champagne everywhere. He stuck the nail file into the lock and moved it around until he felt it click against the broken pins and pushed open the door.

Ryan was convinced his apartment building had the best view of LA. The lights of the city sparkled around and below them, giving a stunning backdrop to what was going to be one hell of a show. Shane handed him his flute of champagne and he took a sip.

“You know, this isn’t just a New Years kiss for me, right?” he said quietly, giving his words weight.

Shane nodded in his periphery, standing beside him and looking out over the city. “Yeah, I know.”

“It’s going to get complicated.”

“Probably.”

Ryan tapped a nail on the side of his glass, looking down at the bubbles climbing the sides. “I think I’m in love with you.”

“I won’t break your heart. I already promised your dad.”

They both laughed and Shane turned to him, lifting his flute for a toast. “To Wes and your inability to stay out of trouble.”

Ryan clinked his flute against his. “To Wes and my bad decisions.”

When fireworks lit up the LA sky at midnight and Shane leaned in and kissed him, for real this time, Ryan he thought that maybe some of his bad decisions didn’t turn out to be so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for your kudos, comments, critiques, angry banshee screams, or whatever you leave for me here or at my tumblr ***[mycroft-silently-judges-you](http://mycroft-silently-judges-you.tumblr.com)***


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